California

California has 12% of the U.S. population and accounts for nearly 15% of the country’s GDP. It has far more Congressional representatives (and therefore far more electoral votes), than any other state but, like every other state, only two senators. How is it that such a vast, populous, and diverse area ended up as a single state?

Before the gold rush, of course, California was thinly populated. But even in the early days of statehood, there were those who recognized that it might make sense to divide the area into more than one state. In fact, that very nearly happened.

By the late 1850’s there was significant tension between the south, populated mostly by “Californios” (native Californians of Hispanic ancestry) and centered in Los Angeles, and the emerging north, populated mostly by immigrants from the east and centered in San Francisco.

Andrés Pico was a Californio who had commanded the native California forces in the Mexican American war. His brother Pio had been the last Mexican governor of California. After the war the Pico brothers made their peace with their new country and became prosperous ranchers. Andrés was elected to the California legislature.

Andrés believed southern and northern California should separate, an opinion that was widely shared throughout the state. Accordingly, in February 1859 he introduced what came to be called “the Pico Act,” proposing that all of the state south of Monterey County be separated into a new territory called “Colorado.” The legislature passed the resolution, the governor signed it, and over 2/3 of the residents of the proposed new state approved it in a referendum. All that remained for the formation of the new state of Colorado was congressional approval.

But by the time the legislation made it to Washington D.C. the secession crisis had broken out and civil war was imminent. The division of California simply wasn’t a federal priority, and it seemed an especially inopportune time to be sanctioning a separation of north and south. And of course Republicans, who controlled Congress, were not keen on admitting a new Democrat-dominated state. So, a congressional vote never occurred and by the time the war was over the enthusiasm for the idea was gone.

And so, Los Angeles is in California, not Colorado, and California remains a single vast state.

California Governor John B. Weller signed the Pico Act, approving the division of California into two states, on April 18, 1859, one hundred sixty-four years ago today.

By the way, the state we now know as Colorado became a territory in 1861 and was admitted as a state in 1876. What name might that territory have chosen if Colorado was already taken?